Vizient Endorses Legislation to Support Medical Education

The Associated Press

IRVING, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb 11, 2019--Vizient announced today that it has endorsed the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2019. The essential, yet targeted, increase in the number of residency slots under the legislation would provide vital resources to our nation’s teaching hospitals to expand opportunities for medical education and training to support the next generation of physicians.

The Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2019 increases the number of Medicare-funded Graduate Medical Education residency slots by 3,000 per year, over a five-year period - increasing the total number of residency slots by 15,000 by 2025. It specifically would target increases in residency slots to residency specialties that are facing shortages, and prioritize distribution of residency slots to new medical schools and branches, facilities training over their current residency caps, hospitals affiliated with the Department of Veterans Affairs, community-based and outpatient settings and facilities that offer a rural track residency training program.

As our member hospitals continue their mission-driven support for medical education, Vizient is proud to honor their commitment to training the next generation of physicians. We applaud this bipartisan legislation that takes a common sense approach to investing in the training of medical doctors, and helps preserve the nation’s commitment to ensuring that highly skilled physicians will always be available to deliver care to patients.

Vizient, Inc., the largest member-driven health care performance improvement company in the country, provides innovative data-driven solutions, expertise and collaborative opportunities that lead to improved patient outcomes and lower costs. Vizient’s diverse membership base includes academic medical centers, pediatric facilities, community hospitals, integrated health delivery networks and non-acute health care providers and represents approximately $100 billion in annual purchasing volume. The Vizient brand identity represents the integration of VHA Inc., University HealthSystem Consortium and Novation, which combined in 2015, as well as MedAssets’ Spend and Clinical Resource Management (SCM) segment, including Sg2, which was acquired in 2016. In 2018, Vizient again received a World’s Most Ethical Company designation from the Ethisphere Institute. Vizient’s headquarters are in Irving, Texas, with locations in Chicago and other cities across the United States. Please visit www.vizientinc.com as well as our newsroom, blog, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube pages for more information about the company.

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